The friendly Big Brother
Crossmedia Nick Hösli is to market Ringier better. He relies on cross-media and advertises with a film.
Crossmedia Nick Hösli is to market Ringier better. He relies on cross-media and advertises with a film.
George Orwell and his "1984" in a different way: Instead of the victim's perspective, a new Ringier marketing film shows how things go on in the Big Brother headquarters. The marketing and advertising manager of company Y, together with a team from Ringier, follows the daily routine of a couple on monitors - unlike in Orwell, of course, with the good intention of drawing the couple's attention to the new product Super-X via various channels during the course of the day and making them happy with it. The team does this by commissioning the print shop from the control center to produce a special issue and to place a strip ad about Super-X in the couple's daily newspaper. Later, it places a banner on the website accessed from the office PC, activates the delivery of direct mail, orders a call center to contact the couple, and triggers a product placement on TV. At the end of the day, after countless contacts with Super-X, the two are finally gripped by gwunder and call an order hotline. They also leave their address. The big handshake follows in the control center.
Many channels to consumers
The message of the Ringier strip is clear: The media group has a multitude of channels to consumers, from newspapers and magazines to television, online advertising, printers, address management company and call center, and is thus able to target almost any desired audience, anytime, anywhere. "We are the largest Swiss multimedia company and are represented in the three main language areas. Therefore, it would be grossly negligent if we did not also offer this potential in bundled form," says Nick Hösli, Key Account Manager (KAM) at Ringier since the beginning of the year.
His job is to present the possibilities of the Ringier Group as a total package for integrated communication to advertising customers - or in the language of the film: to make customers "gluschtig" to enter the Ringier control center and pull all the desired levers there. It goes without saying that this is only an option for major customers: nothing works at this level for less than a quarter of a million francs.
But if you have the wherewithal, you have access to an impressive reach: Ringier media together generate more than 11 million customer contacts in Switzerland every week - no other publisher, and not even SBB, can hold a candle to Ringier in this respect. One ad in all Ringier titles already reaches 3.3 million Swiss people 1.7 times each.
But Hösli stresses that integrated communication goes beyond taking three pages of Blick and five pages of Schweizer Illustrierte at the same time. "Such offers were already possible in the normal day-to-day business - I don't want to interfere with that at all." For him, it's all about intelligently linking media and advertising forms (competitions, sponsoring, public reports) in a precisely timed manner so that the multi-channel message addresses new target groups and creates multiple contacts. "In the future, sales potential will be tapped primarily with networked, target-group-oriented offers across all channels," he is convinced.
In addition to the bundled range of coverage, the KAM and the Ringier taskforce (see box on the right) offer the following main advantages: The potential customer has only one contact person at KAM, the taskforce team presents him with customized solutions, and at the end he receives a single invoice for all services.
The goal is additional budgets
Hösli adheres to certain principles: For example, his customer contacts should in no way affect day-to-day business. "Our goal is to use the KAM system to gain additional budgets and thus market share," he says. He also wants to strictly separate editorial and commercial work.
In addition, Hösli does not limit himself to Ringier channels, but includes other media (radio, billboard, mobile) or events if necessary. "Of course, we primarily want to sell our media, but the customer benefit must always be in the foreground for us, which is why we are open to all appropriate communication channels," he says. He wants to walk the tightrope between his own and the customer's benefit with the greatest possible transparency. So for him, it goes without saying that the customer can involve his media, advertising or event agency in the planning sessions if he so wishes.
In the first few months of this year, the Key Account Taskforce built up the KAM concept. Since April, Hösli has been working on approaching existing key accounts. He can already point to initial successes: Ringier, for example, implemented a first example of integrated communication with Lever Fabergé in May, which will be presented for the first time at the Crossmedia Symposium on June 10. Various other projects are in the pipeline in the coming weeks and months. Overall, however, he expects the consistent implementation of KAM to take about two years.
"Nick Hösli on the new corporate culture at Ringier and the lessons learned from "Gesundheit Sprechstunde.
WW: Ringier already made its first cross-media
Walking tests. Why didn't it work back then?
Nick Hösli: For one thing, the customers weren't ready yet. Cross-media or integrated communication were still foreign words. But Ringier has also evolved: Our offering at the time was almost exclusively print-oriented; we didn't have TV and the Internet yet, or only in the early stages. In addition, the divisions had to grow closer together and get away from the garden-variety mindset.
What tipped the scales in favor of the new start-up? That's partly due to the economic situation. During the economic boom, such ideas are less likely to occur. Now, however, we have to win additional volume - and so it was obvious to present our entire range of products and services. We also know from our day-to-day business that customers are increasingly expecting creative, unconventional solutions. We now offer these cross-media. What's more, with our cross-media packages, we want to offer them an attractive alternative to TV-only campaigns and draw funds away from there.
At "Gesundheit Sprechstunde," crossmedia made big waves on a smaller scale. What lessons do you draw for your work?
I am not responsible for the media association Gesundheit Sprechstunde, and I do not want to comment on it because of the ongoing Bakom investigation. Regardless of the outcome, however, it's clear that cross-media is a very sensitive matter. You have to be careful not to mix editorial and commercial.
Don't you have a kind of watchdog function over "health consultation hours".
No, not at all. The responsibility for the topic of health lies solely with Ringier-TV and the editorial teams involved. This has nothing to do with me.
There are no editorial representatives on the KAM task force, but on "Gesundheit Sprechstunde" even the main presenter actively acquires sponsors. Why does Ringier separate editorial and sponsorship at the KAM level, but not at the association level?
Key Accounting is purely a marketing tool, so only the advertising and marketing managers from the individual divisions are involved. The editorial teams remain independent as always, but of course our customers are always invited to discuss editorial topics with them. The editorial teams then decide independently whether or not to editorialize the topics.
Markus Knöpfli
Concentrated know-how for Ringier customersThe Ringier Key Account Taskforce is currently made up of the following people: Thomas Trüb, Head of Marketing and Member of the Group Executive Board, Nick Hösli, KAM, Bruno Hörler,
Head of Marketing Ringier Print, Thomas Passen, Head of Advertising Market Magazines, Mario Cecchin, Head of Advertising Market Blick Group, Andreas Waldis, Head of Marketing Ringier-TV, and Thomas Kords, Key Account Coordinator.
"We always make our first visit to a customer as a closed group," says Hösli. Firstly, this means that the customer has a competent person of information in front of them for each Ringier area, and secondly, they are then directly informed about the customer's needs. This is then important in the development of concrete cross-media ideas. "We always create these ideas in the overall team," says Hösli. (mk)
Ringier offers the opportunity to pick up audiences via different channels: The same message in print, online and on TV.
Nick Hösli pushes crossmedia.
The client cockpit assigns the messages to the individual channels.
Markus Knöpfli
George Orwell and his "1984" in a different way: Instead of the victim's perspective, a new Ringier marketing film shows how things go on in the Big Brother headquarters. The marketing and advertising manager of company Y, together with a team from Ringier, follows the daily routine of a couple on monitors - unlike in Orwell, of course, with the good intention of drawing the couple's attention to the new product Super-X via various channels during the course of the day and making them happy with it. The team does this by commissioning the print shop from the control center to produce a special issue and to place a strip ad about Super-X in the couple's daily newspaper. Later, it places a banner on the website accessed from the office PC, activates the delivery of direct mail, orders a call center to contact the couple, and triggers a product placement on TV. At the end of the day, after countless contacts with Super-X, the two are finally gripped by gwunder and call an order hotline. They also leave their address. The big handshake follows in the control center.
Many channels to consumers
The message of the Ringier strip is clear: The media group has a multitude of channels to consumers, from newspapers and magazines to television, online advertising, printers, address management company and call center, and is thus able to target almost any desired audience, anytime, anywhere. "We are the largest Swiss multimedia company and are represented in the three main language areas. Therefore, it would be grossly negligent if we did not also offer this potential in bundled form," says Nick Hösli, Key Account Manager (KAM) at Ringier since the beginning of the year.
His job is to present the possibilities of the Ringier Group as a total package for integrated communication to advertising customers - or in the language of the film: to make customers "gluschtig" to enter the Ringier control center and pull all the desired levers there. It goes without saying that this is only an option for major customers: nothing works at this level for less than a quarter of a million francs.
But if you have the wherewithal, you have access to an impressive reach: Ringier media together generate more than 11 million customer contacts in Switzerland every week - no other publisher, and not even SBB, can hold a candle to Ringier in this respect. One ad in all Ringier titles already reaches 3.3 million Swiss people 1.7 times each.
But Hösli stresses that integrated communication goes beyond taking three pages of Blick and five pages of Schweizer Illustrierte at the same time. "Such offers were already possible in the normal day-to-day business - I don't want to interfere with that at all." For him, it's all about intelligently linking media and advertising forms (competitions, sponsoring, public reports) in a precisely timed manner so that the multi-channel message addresses new target groups and creates multiple contacts. "In the future, sales potential will be tapped primarily with networked, target-group-oriented offers across all channels," he is convinced.
In addition to the bundled range of coverage, the KAM and the Ringier taskforce (see box on the right) offer the following main advantages: The potential customer has only one contact person at KAM, the taskforce team presents him with customized solutions, and at the end he receives a single invoice for all services.
The goal is additional budgets
Hösli adheres to certain principles: For example, his customer contacts should in no way affect day-to-day business. "Our goal is to use the KAM system to gain additional budgets and thus market share," he says. He also wants to strictly separate editorial and commercial work.
In addition, Hösli does not limit himself to Ringier channels, but includes other media (radio, billboard, mobile) or events if necessary. "Of course, we primarily want to sell our media, but the customer benefit must always be in the foreground for us, which is why we are open to all appropriate communication channels," he says. He wants to walk the tightrope between his own and the customer's benefit with the greatest possible transparency. So for him, it goes without saying that the customer can involve his media, advertising or event agency in the planning sessions if he so wishes.
In the first few months of this year, the Key Account Taskforce built up the KAM concept. Since April, Hösli has been working on approaching existing key accounts. He can already point to initial successes: Ringier, for example, implemented a first example of integrated communication with Lever Fabergé in May, which will be presented for the first time at the Crossmedia Symposium on June 10. Various other projects are in the pipeline in the coming weeks and months. Overall, however, he expects the consistent implementation of KAM to take about two years.
"Nick Hösli on the new corporate culture at Ringier and the lessons learned from "Gesundheit Sprechstunde.
WW: Ringier already made its first cross-media
Walking tests. Why didn't it work back then?
Nick Hösli: For one thing, the customers weren't ready yet. Cross-media or integrated communication were still foreign words. But Ringier has also evolved: Our offering at the time was almost exclusively print-oriented; we didn't have TV and the Internet yet, or only in the early stages. In addition, the divisions had to grow closer together and get away from the garden-variety mindset.
What tipped the scales in favor of the new start-up? That's partly due to the economic situation. During the economic boom, such ideas are less likely to occur. Now, however, we have to win additional volume - and so it was obvious to present our entire range of products and services. We also know from our day-to-day business that customers are increasingly expecting creative, unconventional solutions. We now offer these cross-media. What's more, with our cross-media packages, we want to offer them an attractive alternative to TV-only campaigns and draw funds away from there.
At "Gesundheit Sprechstunde," crossmedia made big waves on a smaller scale. What lessons do you draw for your work?
I am not responsible for the media association Gesundheit Sprechstunde, and I do not want to comment on it because of the ongoing Bakom investigation. Regardless of the outcome, however, it's clear that cross-media is a very sensitive matter. You have to be careful not to mix editorial and commercial.
Don't you have a kind of watchdog function over "health consultation hours".
No, not at all. The responsibility for the topic of health lies solely with Ringier-TV and the editorial teams involved. This has nothing to do with me.
There are no editorial representatives on the KAM task force, but on "Gesundheit Sprechstunde" even the main presenter actively acquires sponsors. Why does Ringier separate editorial and sponsorship at the KAM level, but not at the association level?
Key Accounting is purely a marketing tool, so only the advertising and marketing managers from the individual divisions are involved. The editorial teams remain independent as always, but of course our customers are always invited to discuss editorial topics with them. The editorial teams then decide independently whether or not to editorialize the topics.
Markus Knöpfli
Concentrated know-how for Ringier customersThe Ringier Key Account Taskforce is currently made up of the following people: Thomas Trüb, Head of Marketing and Member of the Group Executive Board, Nick Hösli, KAM, Bruno Hörler,
Head of Marketing Ringier Print, Thomas Passen, Head of Advertising Market Magazines, Mario Cecchin, Head of Advertising Market Blick Group, Andreas Waldis, Head of Marketing Ringier-TV, and Thomas Kords, Key Account Coordinator.
"We always make our first visit to a customer as a closed group," says Hösli. Firstly, this means that the customer has a competent person of information in front of them for each Ringier area, and secondly, they are then directly informed about the customer's needs. This is then important in the development of concrete cross-media ideas. "We always create these ideas in the overall team," says Hösli. (mk)
Ringier offers the opportunity to pick up audiences via different channels: The same message in print, online and on TV.
Nick Hösli pushes crossmedia.
The client cockpit assigns the messages to the individual channels.
Markus Knöpfli
